Your invited not a +1

ACunningham2Be · December 2010

My fiance and I have started our guest list some say its a little early being that our wedding isn't untill October but we both have a concern: We have single friends who we want dearly at our wedding but we don't have the budget for the +1. Our venue is very stricy about incurring extra costs for the facility rental if we go over 100 guests, so we are doing our best at keeping it at 100 people total. the circumstance we are seeing is a few of our single friends have already started talking about finding a date for our wedding, my question to all of you out there is how do we let our friends know politely that we are inviting only them? We don't want to seem rude but we don't feel like it is peoples business to know its not within our budget.

Beachy730 · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:0df80b32-b4e0-4e19-af3a-35f2a78a9e6f">Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]My fiance and I have started our guest list some say its a little early being that our wedding isn't untill October but we both have a concern: We have single friends who we want dearly at our wedding but we don't have the budget for the +1. Our venue is very stricy about incurring extra costs for the facility rental if we go over 100 guests, so we are doing our best at keeping it at 100 people total. the circumstance we are seeing is a few of our single friends have already started talking about finding a date for our wedding, my question to all of you out there is how do we let our friends know politely that we are inviting only them? We don't want to seem rude but we don't feel like it is peoples business to know its not within our budget.
Posted by ACunningham2Be[/QUOTE]

Tell them that you will not know your definite guest list until closer to the wedding, and that you aren't sure if you will be able to give guests to all of your guests. Try to keep a couple spots available in the event that some of your friends enter into serious relationships between now and then.

danieliza1127 · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:9fa7dd24-5acc-4fc7-86e0-ce241e87ef5b">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Your invited not a +1 : Tell them that you will not know your definite guest list until closer to the wedding, and that you aren't sure if you will be able to give guests to all of your guests. Try to keep a couple spots available in the event that some of your friends enter into serious relationships between now and then.
Posted by dnbeach12[/QUOTE]

Ditto that. Just be honest with them when they say things like that.

kcscejal · December 2010

You can invite single people without a date, but I would leave some wiggle room in there right now. if they enter into a relationship before your wedding then their SO needs to be invited. If they are single and you're not inviting them with a +1 just say, I'm sorry, but we are unable to allow extra guests due to budget/capacity/small, intimate wedding. Only put the name of the person who is invited on the invitation.

laurenclaire1386 · December 2010

What beach said. And also, when you address your invitations, obviously only address it to the person you intend to invite. Some may not know that when an invitation doesn't say "and guest" it means they should come alone, so be prepared for people you invited without a plus one to RSVP with a guest. You'll have to call them and explain, politely, that the invitation was intended for only one person.

Beachy730 · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:68b35428-b49a-4a77-9bf1-1ab41f80b5d9">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]<strong>My FI and I told our friends up front that unless he/she had been dating the person for at least one year (or engaged/married), he/she would not be receiving a +1 on the invitation. </strong>Everyone involved was okay with this, considering that all of our friends will know other people at the wedding. If you are footing the bill, it is completely at your discretion. Let them know that you want them to be there, but that inviting people you may not have met, and may possibly never see again, is not in your budget.
Posted by Rockerchick842[/QUOTE]

Please reconsider doing that. It is really rude to judge every relationship by the same standards, and as adults a year is a really long time to be dating someone before it's considered serious. H and I were engaged in just over a year, so within 2 months we considered ourselves very serious, and I would have been pissed at a friend who decided we weren't serious enough because it wasn't a year yet. Not all relationships are like that, but that is why it's very wrong to make a general cutoff based on length of relationship.

annakb8 · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:68b35428-b49a-4a77-9bf1-1ab41f80b5d9">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]My FI and I told our friends up front that unless he/she had been dating the person for at least one year (or engaged/married), he/she would not be receiving a +1 on the invitation. Everyone involved was okay with this, considering that all of our friends will know other people at the wedding. If you are footing the bill, it is completely at your discretion. Let them know that you want them to be there, but that inviting people you may not have met, and may possibly never see again, is not in your budget.
Posted by Rockerchick842[/QUOTE]

Again, please reconsider. My FI (boyfriend at the time) was invited to a wedding by himself after we had been dating for about 10 months. To add insult to injury the wedding was in my home town (about 1000 miles from where we live.) The groom told FI that SOs were only invited if the couple was engaged, but in reality there were a lot of non-engaged SOs there. Also, we got engaged 2 weeks later so we just barely missed their arbitrary requirements.

Also, do you have all these people's dating "anniversaries" written down in your calendar or something? This 1 year cut-off just seems confusing and potentially hurtful for your friends.

ohwhynot · December 2010

Annakb8, please stick around.

[Deleted User] · December 2010

I have given everyone that is invited a plus 1. It is extremely expensive, but almost everyone knows one another and for the most part would not bring someone they had not already introduced to the others they know casually. In essence my theory is it's nice to extend the invitation if you can, but try not to make arbitrary cut offs. Those work much better with children than relationships.

Beachy730 · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:dea45e94-2076-4a92-8c0a-f39bcc92f746">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]Annakb8, please stick around.
Posted by ohwhynot[/QUOTE]

I second this request.

wadingmoose · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:dea45e94-2076-4a92-8c0a-f39bcc92f746">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]Annakb8, please stick around.
Posted by ohwhynot[/QUOTE]

I agree.

Birdie1483 · December 2010

Can I just say that I hate it when people say "We're not inviting SO's unless they've either been dating X amount of months or are engaged."

Hate hate hate.

wadingmoose · December 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invited-not-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:d095372c-1ef9-4067-bcba-f2a49ce5902dPost:fe68848e-855b-4fec-8ded-52a6c1520907">Re: Your invited not a +1</a>:
[QUOTE]Can I just say that I hate it when people say "We're not inviting SO's unless they've either been dating X amount of months or are engaged." Hate hate hate.
Posted by Birdie1483[/QUOTE]

I'm not a fan of it either, but it's a start if you've got budget and/or space issues. I mean, there's a line that has to be drawn, sometimes it's hard to do it so that one, as an arbitrary line, is a pretty good starting place. But I think a year is a LONG time for a lot of people.

jemmini6 · December 2010

I agree that an aribitrary length of time is a little too general. I have a very large family and even had to limit my side to aunts/uncles only, no first cousins, so natrually I don't have room to invite all the friends I want to. All of the friends I am planning to invite are currently single, but I'm going to readdress this by the time we send out invites. If they have a BF/GF by then, then we will make room for them (my friends and I are all similar in that we don't use the term BF/GF loosely, so if they have one, I know it's legit enough for them to need to be invited).

Please consider people's relationships on an individual basis. Joe and Suzi may have only been together for 5 months, but are already living together, where as Sam and Jane have been together for 5 months, but are more of a fling that no one has been introduced to.

annakb8 · December 2010

Wow I feel so popular!

OP, for what its worth I will not exclude anyone's SO from my final guest list, even though we are pretty tight on space. I would rather invite only my very best friends and let them bring their bf/gf than invite a bunch of other friends with I am not as close to and make them leave their SOs at home.

squeakyduck · December 2010

My rule about plus ones is it has to be facebook-official. (j/k, but I'm surprised that no one's mentioned that.)

I ask my friends if they're seeing someone that they would want to bring. It's a fairly simple solution.

squirrly · December 2010

A year is not an acceptable cut-off. If a guest has a significant other, as defined by them, the SO gets an invite. It's not for the bride and groom to judge the level of commitment of their guests. It's just for them to invite, or not invite, a couple.

ACunningham2Be · December 2010

Thank you so much for the words of advice everyone! I think the consensus is if the friends stay single the invitation will be intended for just them. If the friend enters a new rea;tionship the invite will be for a +1. I agree with many of you that who says one realtionship is or is not serious, the only ones who know that are the two people involved in the relationship. Thanks so much!!!

GeauxTigers17 · December 2010

I've got a question about this - all I have ever heard is that married, engaged, and living together are social units that can't be separated.

This "significant other" business is baffling to me, and I've seen several threads on it that made me go "huh?". Obviously, I would know if my very close friends were dating someone, but weddings, particularly large ones, often include people (like a family cutoff at 1st cousins) that may not be people you talk to all the time. I was taught, like squirrly said, that it was absolutely inappropriate to judge a person's relationship, but I was also taught that the prohibition on judgment was the reason for the black-and-white etiquette rule - so no judgment was required and everyone knew the rule. It also seems really invasive to call and ask "so how serious is this thing with so-and-so?"

So what did y'all do? I don't want to tick anyone off, and among my friends this isn't an issue - I'd never not include a boyfriend of theirs that they were with when the invites went out, no matter how long the relationship, just for the sake of the friendship - but did you call every single person on the guest list to check and see if they were in a relationship that you didn't know about before sending your invitations? That seems absurd!

smokeybailey · December 2010

Eh, my peeps will all get plus ones.

Storytime · December 2010

We have a little bit of wiggle room in the capacity of our venue, but we're struggling with this, too. We don't have the budget to offer up a +1 to every single friend, but we don't want to alienate anyonel. We're inviting people with SOs that we know and know are serious as a pair. Other "single" people are getting invited as singles, but we're going to do our best to accept requests if these people ask to bring someone. Since we're pretty chill people, I figure if people are serious enough that they are comfortable asking us, we'd probably like to have them there.

squirrly · December 2010

Tigers, if you're not sure if someone has an SO, call and ask, or just offer a +1. Personally, I can't fathom inviting someone to my wedding that I didn't know well enough to know what was going on in their life, but that's just me.

"Hi Suzy! We're working on the guest list for the wedding, and I realized you and I haven't talked in awhile. Are you dating someone these days? We'd love to meet him!"

Rockerchick842 · December 2010

I appreciate all of the feedback regarding our one year cut-off. That number did not appear of out thin air. When looking for ways to trim our budget, I looked at the Ask Carley section of the Knot, and that was the amount of time used in one of her responses. Also, all of our friends are either single or married, none are exclusively dating someone. However, if one of them had been dating someone seriously, than the "rule" could have been bent. We are not doing this to be exclusive or rude, but rather to make sure that the people who are invited are being hosted properly. I am not advocating this for every bride, it was only offered as one view point.

Also, FI and I have been in an exclusive relationship for 7 years. November 2008 was the first time we were invited to a wedding together. I'm not making a judgement on a specific number of months needed to be considered serious, but within my circle of friends, 1 year is considered to be getting serious.

smokeybailey · December 2010

I moved in with my FI after just 6 months. We put a deposit on a new home purchase together 17 months after first meeting. The older you get, the shorter the timeline so I would definitely not use any timeline as a rule.

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